Out On A Dud

When movie stars get into the golden era or their age, they want to finish their career on a high note. A high grossing film. A funny, entertaining film. A film that will go down in the history books as “their best final performance piece ever”. Most of the time you cannot predict these things. Then again, you don’t want to predict it. Sadly, ending a career on a perfect performance is just out of reach when the untimely grim reaper is on the verge of knocking on your door. you don’t want the last film you made to be a major flop that you don’t want to be remembered as that piece. Then again, sometimes it can work posthumously and their career can become an instant cult classic. Feel free to agree to disagree.

Mae West – Sextette

An absolute sexpot of the golden era. Dominating Broadway stages between 1910 and 1930, Mae West made the move to the silver screen in her later years, conquering films she performed in. West was a stage goddess, unafraid of revealing her dry wit and sense of humour.

Performing well into her senior years, the final straw was developing a movie script from the play Sextet, which West herself wrote and performed. Sextette was produced in 1978, with an 84 year old West playing a nymphomaniac octagenarian movie star who is swooned by her young husband, played by future 007 agent Timothy Dalton. Throughout the movie, they want to get intimate, but keep getting interrupted by the scrum media pack and obsessive fans who all want to touch and… be intimate.. with the aging star. Other cameos include Dom DeLuise, Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon and Alice Cooper. (Glad they stuck to their day jobs.)

The film was a major disaster, with production faults coming from the starlet herself. The humour, while using her old cheeky charm, was flat and dry, while the cheesiness of the film overall was cringeworthy. West could not remember her lines properly due to her health, as well as quick re-writes to the script, so she had to wear an earpiece so her lines would be fed to her. Her eyesight was failing too, and due to health issues, Director Ken Hughes mentioned that West would sometimes not understand certain directions, often extending or delaying filming scenes.

West passed away in 1980, aged 87, due to poor health brought on by suffering two strokes.

Bob Clark – Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 

What I don’t get is, how did this one get off the mark? The first film Baby Geniuses while it made a profit, the entire movie was panned. Even actors Christopher Lloyd, Kathleen Freeman and Dom DeLuise couldn’t really save it. Babies being studied by scientists, ‘imprison’ the babies for “BabyCo” – a theme park based on how smart the babies are, who work out how to escape. It was profitable at the cinema, even more popular on home video, (making $36 million out of the $14 million budget) so the studios gave Director Bob Clark the green light to make the sequel Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.

Before we get into the sequel, Clark was the director of fantastic cult classic films. 80s teen-coming-of-age Porky’s and Porky’s II, as well as the oddly narrated A Christmas Story. Clark also directed a few episodes of Steven Spielberg‘s Amazing Stories for TV.

Fast forward to 2004, the sequel Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 hits the silver screen, nearly being panned in every way, shape or form. Starring Jon Voight and Scott Baio, media mogul Bill Biscane (Voight) is kidnapping children around the world to create the ultimate entertainment in television – brainwash everyone to not be active and to sit in front of the television, watching his media empire 24 / 7 / 365. What Biscane doesn’t understand is that one of the baby geniuses is kidnapped, who manages to get his martial arts on and kicks everyones’ arse, allowing the kidnapped babies to escape and bring down the media empire down from within.

The film earnt $9 million from its $20 million budget, hitting the near bottom of the bottom 100 worst films of all time on IMDB (currently #3 at time of print). This nearly ended Clark’s career, but an unfortunate disaster struck the Clark family in 2007. Clark and his 22 year old son Ariel were tragically killed in a car accident in Los Angeles, where a drunk driver collided head-on into his car, with his son travelling with him. The drunk driver was sentenced to 6 years prison and deported back to Mexico as he was illegally in the US. Clark was 67.

 

Joan Crawford – TROG

It was the film that grounded a silver screen star’s career to a halt… when it was near the end anyway. After decades of star-studded silver screen features, the straw that broke the troglodyte’s hairy back was Joan Crawford’s appearance in the 1970 British horror film TROG.

Crawford played Dr Brockton, who discovers a living caveman in the english countryside, who while is vicious to anyone that gets in its way, Brockton studies the nature of the troglodyte (Trog) and learns its reactions. While under monitored captivity, the government and military interfere with Trog, allowing it to escape and run amuck… when all it wants is loving care that Dr Brockton can give.

With its shoddy costume design, terrible storyline and Crawford’s “I need the money” attitude, the film was a disaster, sending Crawford into the shadows, thus retiring from the big screen. She made low profile appearances in a few TV shows and made-for-tv films, but nothing major enough to boost the starlet back into the spotlight. Crawford’s ill health caught up with her, eventually dying of a heart attack in her apartment in 1977.

Peter Sellers – Trail Of The Pink Panther

The talent of Peter Sellers is remarkable. From The Goon Show to a James Bond parody Casino Royale (in which he quit 80% of the way through), and multitasking in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, Sellers stood out abotu 3/4 of the way of his film career with The Pink Panther series. Starring in four of the films, Sellers was due to start filming the fifth installment Trail Of The Pink Panther in 1980, but dropped dead of a major heart attack, only a few days shy of an appointment to have heart surgery. MGM – the movie studio behind The Pink Panther series, scratched together Sellers’s bloopers and outtakes from previous films, and spliced them together to form Trail Of The Pink Panther, releasing it in 1982.

The flick tanked, only making a measly $9 million, compared to the fourth film Revenge Of The Pink Panther, also starrring Sellers, which made $49 million. His third wife,Lynne Frederick, successfully sued the studios under the claim that the using the random footage in a disasterous film destroyed Sellers’s reputation and image.

Lucky his previous work as a Goonie holds up to this day as one of his best works.

John Candy – Wagon’s East!

The larger-than-life comedian had a string of successes in the 1980s, but as soon as 1990 hit, the string of flops developed. It wasn’t until the 1993 hit Cool Runnings started John Candy’s effort to climb back up the top of the success ladder. It wasn’t until 1994, Candy suffered a heart attack during the filming of Wagons East!, a comedy based in the Wild West of 1860s in which Candy played an alcoholic wagon master.

There were other films he had completed in 1993 that were released posthumously, however, Wagons East! was the only one where the studio claims that all his scenes were completed before his death. However, an early scene of Candy emptying his bottle of whiskey is replicated towards the end of the film, with an altered background. Also alleged that some cut-away shots where you see the back of Candy or himself in the far distance were body doubles.

Candy was not overly excited to make the film, as he was contractually obligated by the studio do make it. Sadly, it fell flat at the box office, with negative reviews by critics saying that the only sad thing was the death of Candy during production.

Other honourable mentions:

Bela Lugosi – Plan 9 From Outer Space

The Dracula of the black and white film era, Bela Lugosi was well into his senior years when D-grade film director Ed Wood became friends with him in his final years. Trying to make it back onto the big screen, Lugosi became a cult favourite with a line of low budget film appearances, until the development of the 1959 science fiction flick Plan 9 From Outer Space – where Lugosi died of a heart attack before production began. Wood had filmed test shots with Lugosi for a previous film Tomb Of The Vampire prior to his death, but the project was abonded. Wood used the incomplete footage to weave in to the story. Extra visual shots of Lugosi’s character were substituted for Wood’s wife’s chiropractor, who spent his on screen debut with his face hidden behind a cape.

Chris Farley – Almost Heroes

One of the most beloved stars of Saturday Night Live‘s comedic line-up, Chris Farley‘s films were not all major hits, but were cult favourites. Making cameos in Wayne’s World 1 and 2, Farley stood out with his sidekick David Spade with films Tommy Boy and Black Sheep. His stand-alone tryout of Beverly Hills Ninja, while a poor film, was a commercial success, pushed Farley to the top. It wasn’t until filming Almost Heroes with FRIENDS star Matthew Perry, Farley continuously delayed production due to checking into drug rehab numerous times. However, he managed to complete the film, but Farley’s life ended shortly after when he was found dead mid December 1997, from a drug overdose. Almost Heroes was posthumously released in 1998 – but failed to win over the audience.

Rest In Peace…